


and learn to live with the unimaginable

by doctortwelfth



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (offscreen and not graphic), Angst, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Introspection, Not A Fix-It, Post-Infinity War, i know marvel's allergic to complex emotions but she deserves this much, let may parker mourn her spider-child 2k18
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 07:16:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14869169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctortwelfth/pseuds/doctortwelfth
Summary: May Parker waits.In the devastating, fragile silence of a world that is now missing half its population, May Parker holds herself very, very still, and waits.





	and learn to live with the unimaginable

**Author's Note:**

> still dead because of school so that's why this is so short, but i'm working on writing more consistently :0 i'm also participating in the mcu bingo so expect some more fics in the near future!
> 
> the major character death is mostly implied and happens offscreen. there are also assumptions of character death that are incorrect, please remember that may does not have all the facts at this point.
> 
> title is from hamilton's "it's quiet uptown" because i'm a sadist like that :))))

May Parker waits.

In the devastating, fragile silence of a world that is now missing half its population, May Parker holds herself very, very still, and waits.

It is long past Peter’s curfew. Not that he’d had one, really, since the whole Spiderman debacle, but there had been an unspoken agreement that he would be home by two in the morning at the very latest. May can count on one hand the number of times he had broken it, and none of those incidents been voluntary, or very pleasant for either of them. She still remembers the dull thump on the doorway; Peter, falling into the apartment with blood on his face, his hands, his clothes—so much blood, soaking into May’s favorite set of silk pyjamas and turning the pale blue into something ugly and rust-red.  Her clenched hands had been stark against the spreading stains as she phoned a number buried at the very bottom of her contacts. A suit had arrived within two minutes, and Tony’s face was just as ashen as hers when he stumbled out of the armor.

(She would do anything to forget that night. She would do anything to never have to feel that kind of desperation again.)

These are the thoughts that spiral through May’s mind as she sits in Peter’s room with the unmade bed and half-complete homework assignments on the desk, waiting for him to swing in through the window like he always does.

The moon travels along the sky. The stars remain indifferent. Perhaps they, too, are suffering the loss of half their people.

Please, not Peter.

* * *

May is a graphic designer and freelance artist, but she has a minor in Mathematical Sciences and she knows what probability is.

Half the population is gone. One out of every two people.

If U={May, Peter}, then P(May.gone)=0.5, P(Peter.gone)=0.5.

P(May.gone ∩ Peter.gone)=0

It’s a coin toss between life and death, and she is the one who has won.

P(May.gone’ ∩ Peter.gone)=1

(This doesn’t feel like winning.)

She would lose in a heartbeat if it meant that Peter was one who lived in her place.

* * *

She calls the number at the bottom of her contacts. Again and again and again, and every time, it goes straight to voicemail.

She finds out why later, on the news. _Billionaire Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man, confirmed missing after contribution to Central Park battle._ The bluish light of the screen casts flickering shadows onto her face, and she does not recognize the tired eyes that stare back at her in the mirror.

There is a segment which features Pepper Potts, CEO of Stark Industries, holding a press conference where the journalists nearly climb over each other in the frenzy to get their questions answered.

A curly-haired reporter with heavily made-up eyes manages to push closest to the woman. “Is Mr. Stark still alive? Do we know if he has disintegrated along with the rest?”

Pepper Potts swallows hard, throat working several times before she speaks. Her blonde hair is mussed up at the back, and she looks very, very tired. “Mr. Stark was last seen by several bystanders near the New York Sanctum Sanctorum, shortly after the appearance of the extraterrestrial spaceship. He has not returned or made any contact since that time.”

The gathered reporters burst into noise at that, and the program switches back to a late night news channel. _People all over the world_ _are grieving the sudden, inexplicable loss of what is estimated to be around half the earth’s current population,_ announces the host in a monotonous, entirely too composed voice. May clenches her teeth, muting the television with a vicious motion.

She spares a brief thought for Ms. Potts, Tony Stark’s soon-to-be wife. (A widow before she's even married. May knows what it is like to lose a lover.) But mostly, the knowledge that her last connection to Peter’s whereabouts has disappeared fills the shadows of the room and threatens to break her.

* * *

She buries her head in her hands and screams herself hoarse under a night sky full of cold, cold stars. There is a bottle next to her that empties itself too quickly.

Her head swims. The stars blur.

May grasps the smooth glass neck of the bottle and hurls it into the air, at the lights that shine just as brightly as before, unknowing and uncaring. How dare they. How dare they take away her world, how dare they involve the earth in whatever stupid petty conflict that the rest of the galaxy had amongst themselves—

The bottle, of course, falls to the ground and shatters with the force of the collision. Of course it does. May is no superhero. She is just an ordinary woman who had loved an extraordinary boy, and it hadn’t been enough.

She cannot change the laws of physics any more than she can rewind the days and bring back everyone that had disintegrated into the ground. The bottle will always break. She will always live, and Peter will not.

May runs back into the house, refusing to look at the shards of the broken bottle; proof of everything that could have been and wasn’t.

It takes a while to admit that she is crying, ugly sobs that echo around a too-empty space where only a single woman lives now.

* * *

Once, just once, in a fit of desperation, May picks up her phone and dials Tony Stark’s number again. It goes to voicemail, because he is dead; just like the couple down the road and the girl who always biked past her house and the head editor of _Teen Vogue_ and her nephew.

 _Leave a message after the beep!_ The pre-recorded message ends with a cheerfully mundane reminder. May cannot bear hearing it again.

“This is your fault,” she says into the speaker, and it comes out shaky on the tail end of a sob. “This is all your fault, I know he was with you that day, don’t you even try to lie to me again because I’ve seen the footage—” The sentences start to blur together, and so does the wall she is staring at in an effort to stop crying.

“I’ve seen the footage,” she repeats, and this time it’s just broken. The hand holding the phone trembles. She wonders what would happen if she just let go. (She’s not only talking about the phone.)

“What happened to him? How could you involve him in this stupid superhero business of yours, he was seventeen, did you know that, Stark? He was seventeen years old and he was as good as my _son_ and all I know is he went to school that morning and _never came back_!”

The sharp cracking noise that the device makes when it hits the wall should be satisfying, but it does nothing to lessen the almost physical ache deep behind her sternum.

* * *

Gradually, the world regains its bustle and life. There are still three billion people left alive. There is still money to make and legal matters to sort out and work to be done, because the earth does not care if its people have disappeared overnight by the billions. It keeps turning, and soon enough, everyone on it follows.

May Parker does not. She sits in a room that is beginning to feel less and less like Peter with each passing night, and holds vigil.

She believes. She waits.

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is [@doctortwelfth](http://doctortwelfth.tumblr.com) and i'm currently taking prompts, so hmu anytime! (i also have a discord under the same name if anyone wants to friend me)
> 
> edit: you can now reblog the fic as a post on tumblr [here](https://doctortwelfth.tumblr.com/post/174723099918/and-learn-to-live-with-the-unimaginable-by)


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